


By Beloved Hands

by UrdnotChicken



Category: Elder Scrolls, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-06
Updated: 2015-04-20
Packaged: 2017-12-31 16:02:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1033609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrdnotChicken/pseuds/UrdnotChicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elisif DuCarne, Thieves Guild Master and Arch-Mage at the Arcane University, finds her life upended during a series of unfortunate and rather awkward happenings. From getting caught picking pockets to escaping prison with the Emperor, even finding a royal bastard with a penchant for drink and pleasurable company, the troubled woman is ultimately saddled with a responsibility that will never have a happy outcome.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In the Wrong Pockets

It was a funny thing. She'd just been granted the title of Grey Fox, earned her place in history for stealing an Elder Scroll, snuck under the noses of hundreds and hundreds of people none the wiser, and picked the pockets of just about every guard in the Imperial City just to say she had. All of these things under her belt, and she still got caught with her hand in his pocket.  
    He had seemed a simple enough target; a tall Imperial in dark robes, hood drawn, surely a mage. She spotted him while skulking the Waterfront; she was just about to turn in for the night when footsteps appeared right in her line of vision, along with the faintest sniff of some familiar lost perfume, leather and nightshade, home and comfort. She'd thought to ignore it as she was quite a bit tipsy, but then he appeared out of nowhere, hood obscuring his features as he recast a chameleon spell with a muttered phrase and flick of the wrist.  She was hooked.  
    He didn't see her coming, nor did he seem all that rich. It wasn't about the money, anyways. It was the challenge, the rush of being so intimately close to a person without them ever noticing, It was about lifting prized possessions from their person with skill, replacing the weight if it was heavy, and then later greeting that person on the street like a long lost friend. Sometimes it was a close call, but she was a master of stealth, and there wasn't an alley she couldn't disappear in. So it was surprising indeed when she found her wrists in a bone crushing grip above her head, back shoved against dilapidated walls, a dagger pressed to her throat. The faintest of cuts marred her neck, a trickle of blood rolling lazily down white skin. She shuddered, struggling as carefully as she could, but it did little as the man used his body to hold the squirming thief still.  
    "You are not the first to attempt such a thing, thief. Hmm, what was it I did last time? Ah, yes." The dagger moved up higher, pressing ever closer to her left eye before she began struggling in earnest. The jostling and shaking continued until her hood fell off, and she glared up at the now still man until she too froze, a faint gasp catching in her throat.  
    "L-Lucien...?" her voice was a tremor, faint even from his intimate position, but it didn't matter. She was there. She was alive.  
    She was pissed.  
  



	2. Dance of Reunions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An unexpected reunion occurs when Elisif unwittingly picks the pockets of her former friend and lover.

    It was almost comical, seeing the extreme change in emotions cross her features. Anger, pain, heartache, hope, happiness, relief. And all in such rapid succession.  He lowered his blade, sheathing it without ever breaking contact with her body, never even breaking eye contact. Those pale blue, nearly white orbs had haunted him for years, that last look of desire she ever spared keeping him awake much more than he'd dare admit. Never had he imagined she'd be there again, eyes the same, face the same save several hair-thin scars, skin the same cream and roses it had always been, and her hair dark and rich mahogany. Apparently she was also possessed of the same temper.  
    "Get your damn hands off me!" she practically hissed, pulling as hard as she could in an effort to force her release. He didn't loosen his grip, however, instead taking a wrist in each hand and thrusting them down by her side. This had the desired effect of her silence, but it was over when she slammed her forehead into his face, the force breaking his nose with a sickening and very satisfying crunch. Freed at last, she pulled her dagger, silvered, bejeweled and very obviously enchanted, from its sheath. In that brief time Lucien drew his blade as well, murmured a phrase, and disappeared. This should have scared the woman, but instead she began to laugh.  
    "Do you truly think that will help Lucien?" She stood still, not turning her head from side to side, not twitching. Instead that manic grin spread across her face once more. The echo of his laughter lingered in her ears.  
    "You don't have to boast to me, Elisif. Your eyesight is not that clever." That voice, the deep, dark timbre of it, threatened to bring her undone, memories of times long past dredged up with the merest shudder of breath from him (and how long had she sat imprisoned, imagining his voice, be it in joy or rage that he used it), but she focused. This had been too long in the making for a bit of sentimentality to get in the way.  
    In an attempt to humor her mark turned assassin, Elisif turned slowly, eyes skimming the ground, but Lucien was much too light of step to leave a trail in this grass, and she knew his step was almost silent, the lapping of the nearby bay covering what remained. With a shrug, Elisif stood with her legs shoulder-width apart, knees loose, arms at her side, and eyes closed, elegant face pointed to the heavens. The smile was gone. Ready to be done with this, Lucien came from behind, prepared to slice through her delicious throat-  
    With a twist of her torso Elisif brought the assassin down. On the ground he was, quite visible with her hands clamped to his wrists, beating one against the rocky ground until he dropped the dagger from his now pathetic and battered hand. Though slim of frame, she held him down with her weight and a quickly cast spell that increased his burden. Her legs were stretched out against his in hopes of preventing escape.  
    "Perhaps I couldn't see you, my love, but when have you not smelled like home to me?" she whispered, the crazed smile creeping back onto her face. "Now, how would you like me to finish this, Lucien?" Those lips that once haunted him years ago pressed lightly against the tip of his throbbing nose, eliciting a hiss from her prisoner. In her carelessness and relentless teasing, she let the spell dissipate, and Lucien slammed her on the hard ground, forcing a grunt from her chest as he clamored on top of her instead, blood steadily dripping from his nose and oozing from his injured sword hand onto her skin. He easily took her small hands in one of his, holding her still with his superior strength, no spells needed, and the smile on her face faded.  
    "Fine, dear Lucien." she murmured, and tilted her head back, offering her neck to him. "I told you once before, if the last thing I felt was to be a murderous death, I'd have the hands I love deliver the blow." She peered back up at him, seeing his own enjoyment of the situation, her helplessness and acknowledgement of such. She had been so sure he would want to draw it out, but he brought the dagger up to her throat, the hands of a seasoned killer preparing for the fatal slice.  
    "Anything else, Elisif, or are you ready for the Void?" his face was pure ecstasy, the prelude to the calm of the kill, the dreadful and terminal thud of the dying heart slipping into blissful silence. He wanted to commence, but hadn't he been brought up with impeccable manners? He waited for her response patiently.  
    There were no tears, no trembling lips, and no fearful glances. She was calm and collected, and when she spoke, it was not what he had expected. "The Void ought to make ready for me, I think. One question though, and I hope you will answer honestly."  
    "Quickly then." he murmured, and she looked him dead in the eyes, no trace of mad humor left.  
    "When did you become the betrayer, Lucien? In my youth and stupidity I thought we were-well--Even the perfect dark and silence of the Void wouldn't have kept us from knowing the other inside and out. Who else could say they understood one another so well?" His reaction was surprise, incredulity, and doubt.  
    "Don't spit your venom, snake." he growled, and to another it would have been menacing, to any other he had faced it would have spelled immediate death, but she kept her calm. "I had every reason to hunt you down for what you did, but I was young and foolish, a romantic who knew you were an innocent, that you would never feed information to our enemies. I thought you'd fled to a life in the light, that you'd ran from me. And now I'm doing what I should have done back then, your happy life be damned." Still, his hands were not so certain, his body not so forceful, and Elisif took advantage, wresting her hands free and knocking the dagger from his grip. He did not move to stop her.  
    "Did you think I ran away, spent my life on the beaches of the Summerset Isles?" she laughed mirthlessly and sat up, taking a reluctant hand in hers, bathing his broken skin in healing magick and later doing the same for his nose. Gingerly the blood was wiped from the assassin's face, and then an awful silence followed. He was toying again with the dagger, and she was watching him do it until finally she couldn't stand anymore.  
    "Come on then. I have a house nearby. We can clean up and discuss this like two ordinary citizens instead of bloodthirsty psychopaths. It sounds as though we may have been mistaken all these years." but she saw him shake his head. His gloved hand delicately brushed against her now thoroughly filthy face, dark eyes meeting pale ones. She watched him warily before guiding her hand to rest atop his own, but no sooner was the contact made than it was lost, his disarming and gentle touch turning into a vice grip on her neck. Her hands chased his, but she might as well have been trying to dismantle the White-Gold Tower for all the good it did.  
    The Speaker leaned close, smirking as her vision blurred. "Unless you plan to become a murderer for our Dread Father, hope that we do not meet again, Elli. I am not the fool boy you knew." With one final squeeze Lucien let her go, going invisible immediately and leaving Elisif to choke and cough and gasp by the waters of the Rumare.


	3. Hunger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Speaker blows off steam after fleeing the Imperial City

Shadowmere's hooves pounded hard and fast against the reliable Imperial roads. Her master set a breakneck pace, one that would have had any normal horse frothing at the mouth and stumbling off the road in a short time. This was no ordinary horse, however, as any could see by looking at her. Dark as the Void, eyes the color of blood, and a saddle emblazoned with the Black Hand. Above all this she carried an intelligence that far surpassed her fellow equines. No, the speed was nothing for this timeless creature.

This overly clever horse could sense her master's distress. More appropriately, she could smell the anger rolling off of him like so many waves against a ruined shore. A need for vengeance that could not be sated. Perhaps his contract in the Imperial City had not gone well? But then, she'd not heard of her master being unable to perform before, so there was no reason to start now.

Whatever the reason, whatever the rage, Shadowmere obeyed without resistance, carrying Lucien ever closer to Fort Farragut. Her rider himself was lost in thought.  
****************  
_He remembered her as she had been, his Elisif, and their last days together._  
_She hurried to greet him as soon as he'd darkened the doorstep, the same as always. She was soft and fair, still so innocent and naive despite her association with him. Everything about her was soft, from the arms that encircled him to the lips that sought out his with a slight bashfulness. Despite his desire to appear detached and cold blooded, he could never keep up the facade around her. Perhaps because they'd been companions since childhood, or maybe because there was no one there for him to intimidate. If ever he had seemed imposing or frightful to her, that time had long passed._  
_"Welcome home, Lucien." Elisif whispered against his dirty, cloth-clad chest, and as much as he wanted to scoff, he knew it was true._

The pound of hooves lulled Lucien into a state of terminal calm, the constant swirl of thoughts churning on and on until they were interrupted by the faintest trail of smoke in the moonlight, which he followed to the source. A camp of bandits slept around a dying fire, only one keeping watch in the still night. Shadowmere was left to graze beneath a hemlock tree as the many-blooded assassin crept in the shadows.  


Several shabby tents were pitched around a cheery fire, the watchman, a Redguard in fur armor, warming his hands without a thought to the dangers that lurked beyond the ring of light. He breathed his last exactly twelve seconds later, blood gushing in lovely rivulets against rocky soil.  
His first victim dead, the usual peace did not fall upon the Speaker. Instead a deeper, more persistent rage settled in his chest, a lust for violence that was damn near unquenchable. With a growl, Lachance threw the redguard corpse into the flames, setting the fire to sparking and popping, starting the bandits into consciousness.  
The bandits were quick to their feet, panicked and flooded with adrenaline. Their hands gripped weapons tightly, but by the time they were fully alert, Lucien had vanished. Surely he could have killed them outright, but all deaths were not equal. He favored killing up close, so intimate a position to see the light fade from his victims' eyes, to breathe in their final gasp of air. The pulse of arterial bleeds fading away into a faint ooze as the heart gave out was a particular favorite of his. Feeling the soft skin of throats being sliced through like silk, it was invigorating. The best part, however, was watching the person accept the Void. Yes, one was never quite as honest as when they were about to die, and in that way Lucien had met and learned of countless personalities, hundreds of faces offered to his beloved Father and Mother.

This night was hardly different. He had a need to fulfill, and through the blood and fear of these miscreants he gained said fulfillment, stalking the men as they pulled blades from their belts. There were only three left after the initial kill, and the lot of them started to pit against one another immediately. Most of the time Lucien would have sat back and enjoyed the show, but not this night. This night all souls were his to claim.

The first two were given brilliant red smiles as soon as they wandered away from the light of the fire, leaving the final one, a tall, youthful Breton, alone and terrified. The Breton braced himself against a nearby tree, determined not to be taken unawares like his companions. He would face death as an equal, or so it seemed. Lucien grinned at that thought, for he knew the truth: Death has no equal.

"Come out then, coward." the Breton yelled, barely managing to keep the tremor from his voice. He fingered the handle of his axe nervously, his palms slick with sweat. "Fight like a man."

Suddenly Lucien appeared before the Breton, a smile more pure than any the boy had ever seen gracing his killer's face. His chest was pressed against the youth's, his hands gripping the pitiful rusty axe and tossing it aside. It was his blade that pierced the young man's belly, and later it was that same blade that stabbed him in the chest, when the wait had become too much to handle. Stomach wounds had always been too tedious a thing for the Speaker, who always preferred clean kills.

The pulse of that doomed heart was a song that lulled Lucien to peace as he walked bloodstained and content back to Shadowmere, greeting her with a kind word before mounting and departing at a much more reasonable pace.  


Once back at Fort Farragut, disrobed and soaking in a steaming bath, his thoughts overtook him. Memories of things that he thought he'd long since forced out, of laughter and tenderness, of pale eyes and smiling lips, gentle hands and kind words. Childhood games and comforting embraces. Of the hearth and home they'd kept together. Of passionate kisses and long nights learning and savoring each other's bodies. Of--- but no, it didn't matter. All of it was barely more than a distraction, and it all came from the desire to know one thing.  
Why, after all these years, did she keep that damned blade?

**Author's Note:**

> This was originally posted on Fanfiction . net, but I stopped a while back. I'm reposting, rewriting when and where it is appropriate, and hopefully ending it. If anyone from FF followed me there and is reading this, I am sorry for taking so long to work on this again.


End file.
